The MLB playoffs are not the only professional baseball going on right now. Here in Arizona, the Arizona Fall League (AFL) is showcasing some of the game’s top prospects in a rather more… relaxed setting, shall we say. There are six teams in the AFL, each being a combination of prospects from five different MLB teams. They play against each other for a period of about a month, at venues around the Valley, along with an All-Star game and a Championship Game at the end of the year. Arizona’s prospects play at the team’s
spring home of Salt River Fields, as part of the Salt River Rafters.
Nine games into the season, the Rafters are 6-3. That’s good enough for second-place, but only half a game separate the leaders, the Scottsdale Scorpions, from the Rafters and the Surprise Saguaros. It has been a very offensive-minded league, with teams averaging 6.11 runs per game. But that’s absolutely par for the course: last year’s figure was almost identical at 6.13. The Rafters are middle of the pack on both sides of the ball, currently ranked third by OPS (.754) and fourth by ERA (5.42). However, they do have the best fielding percentage at .981, having made only six errors – that’s one-third of the total made by the Saguaros (18 across their nine games).
Eight Diamondbacks prospects are present on the Rafters roster, three position players and five pitchers. Leading the way is Demetrio Crisantes, Arizona’s No. 1 prospect and their only representative in MLB Pipeline’s Top 100, where he is No. 84 overall. He got off to a hot start, going 8-for-17 across his first four games, including a 4-for-5 night against the Mesa Solar Sox, where he had a double, 4 RBIs, 3 runs, and stole a base. However, things have become considerably tougher since, Crisantes adding just one more hit in 15 at-bats, with five strikeouts. His line is now down to .281/.324/.438, though the .762 OPS is still the best among the D-backs hitters.
Also seeing time is outfielder Nathan Hall, who perhaps has the weirdest line of any hitter in the AFL to date. He hasn’t hit much, going 3-for-22 with five K’s. But he has amassed eleven walks in that time: so while his BA is an underwhelming .136, his OBP is a perfectly respectable .424. Not many players have an OBP more than twice their SLG (.182). We’ll see if it lasts. Finally, there’s third baseman Yassel Soler. While ranked as the system’s No. 30 prospect by MLB Pipeline, he has just a .377 OPS, having gone 3-for-20 with two walks and no extra-base hits. However, worth noting Soler is still just 20 years old, making him very young to be facing some of the game’s top pitching prospects.
On the pitching side, things are a little tougher to monitor, because we are looking at some extremely small sample sizes. Nobody has yet reached even three innings of work, basically meaningless for sabermetric analysis. Of the five pitchers sent by Arizona, only Patrick Forbes is a starter, and the team is being very cautious about his appearances, because a strained flexor limited him to less than 30 IP this year. Our 1st-round pick from 2025 (#29 overall) is this likely limited to five or six AFL outings. So far, he has started once, allowing a single run over 2.2 innings, but getting good reviews from Jack for his sweeper. Wes covered Forbes in more detail last month.
Among the relievers, most excitement is probably going to lefty Joe Ariola. A 7th-round pick in 2025, he went through four levels in 2026, finishing at Double-A Amarillo. It’s his crazy K-numbers which jump off the board: 64 strikeouts in only 34.2 innings and 140 batters faced. In the AFL, he has appeared three times, allowing one hit over 2.1 innings, with no walks and three strikeouts. Again, given the quality of the opposing hitters, that’s impressive. The other lefty is Luke Craig, another man looking to make up for lost time. Since signing in July 2024, he has just 31.1 IP due to Tommy John in early 2025. He has given up two runs in two innings here, but I’ll settle for “staying healthy”.
Connor Foley is another who had impressive K-numbers, with 46 across 26 IP between Rookie and A-ball. That may explain why the RHP got a bonus of $1 million from the D-backs, despite falling to Arizona as a fifth-round pick. But he didn’t start pitching until he was a senior in high school, so is a work in progress, with 1.1 scoreless innings in the AFL reaching 98 mph. Finally, there’s John West – at 6’8” and 265 lbs, he’s likely on his way to becoming Mark Grace’s favorite ballplayer. West is more likely to become an “innings eater”, but allowed two home runs while recording four outs over his only AFL appearance to date.
One other thing of interest in the AFL, is a rule change being tested out at Salt River Fields. It has previously been a Petri dish for things like pitch timers and ABS challenges, but this one seems to be less warmly received. Fangraphs reports, “Dark green hash marks have been painted on the outfield grass and at points along the arc where the infield dirt meets the outfield grass. Defenders have to stand within a certain distance of these hash marks when a pitch is thrown.” The aim is, as with the ban on shifts, to increase offense. But Keith Law was not impressed: “The solution still rests with the pitchers, not rearranging the deck chairs in the outfield.” What do you reckon?
